Housing segregation in the United States developed slowly and deliberately. In fact, prior to 1900, African Americans were scattered widely throughout white neighborhoods. In southern cities in the United States, for example, African American servants and laborers lived side by side with their white employers, and in northern urban areas, African Americans were more likely to share a neighborhood with whites than to live in racially segregated communities. Although the evils of discrimination continued after the Civil War, African Americans were generally residentially integrated with whites in the North. The two racial groups regularly interacted in a common social world, sharing cultural traits and values through personal and frequent interaction.
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